Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Tim Taylor - Charles Dickens on the poor. Y'know, before you assert that things got better for the British poor after the Victorian era ended, you might want to read George Orwell's Road to Wigan Pier. The 1930s sucked as well.

Robert's Stochastic Thoughts - there is no such thing as NAWRU. Yup, turns out that the data proves the Phillips curve is horizontal. The supposed correspondence between inflation and unemployment is based on a "spherical cow" assumption that output is employment; but did the macroeconomists ever scare up the slightest piece of data to prove it?

Bloomberg - Finland finally realizes it should never have joined the Euro common currency union. And what's great about this is that Finland has spent the past five years goose-stepping in line with Schauble, demanding austerity from the EZ periphery. Well, guys, now that the Nokia cash cow is gone, I guess you're just going to have to impose an internal devaluation on yourselves, eh? Fire all civil servants, privatize all industry, ban unions, jack up unemployment by 20%, eliminate all benefits, cut pensions, y'know? Karma's a bitch, Finland.